Immediately after a press conference on Thursday, ESPN's panel of
former players — Mark Brunell, Jerome Bettis, Brian Dawkins —
said they couldn't believe that Brady didn't know something was
up with the balls.

Not only did Brady claim he didn't alter the footballs himself,
he also said he didn't notice they were underinflated — and had
no idea how they could have gotten that way.

Brunell said that's impossible to believe:

“I did not believe what Tom had to say. Those balls were
deflated. Somebody had to do it, and I don’t believe there’s an
equipment manager in the NFL who on his own initiative would
deflate a ball without his starting quarterback’s approval. I
just didn’t believe what Tom Brady had to say. ... That
football is our livelihood. If you don’t feel good about throwing
that ball, your success on the football field can suffer from
that."

He was visibly angry when he said it.

Bettis agreed.

"I can’t believe it. I needed to take a sip of water. I could not
believe what I heard," he said.

Dawkins was incredulous that Belichick and Brady both said they
had no idea what happened to the footballs:

"It’s unbelievable. ... Tom Brady says he does not know. Bill
Belichick says he does not know. So the equipment manager is
getting thrown under the bus. Now he’s the guy? Now he’s the one
responsible? He took it upon himself to doctor up the balls when
nobody else knew about them?"

Brady said he prefers the balls to be inflated to 12.5 pounds per
square inch, the minimum amount of air pressure allowed under NFL
rules. Eleven of the 12 balls that New England was using on
offense in the AFC title game were found to be more than two
pounds per square inch below that amount.

While most people are stopping short of calling Brady a liar,
there's healthy skepticism over how he could have been totally
blindsided by this, even if he wasn't directly
involved.